Looking at this new map of outland, i see coilfang reserve and people are saying lady vashj will be the boss at the end. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but didnt she, kael, and illidan team up as allies? Which implies we will also be killing illidan and kael....which is fine lore-wise for alliance, but for the horde, and specifically blood elves? They regard kael as their prince, why on earth would they want to kill him or his allies? Phat eps? It'll be interesting to see how blizzard explains this one, and splitting up the blood elf race like darkspear trolls doesnt fit with the ending of TFT. Anyone got any ideas on how this wont wreck the lore?

This deserved a new thread?

At least you have a profile.

Well what would you do if for a long time you'd been hoping to reunite with your Prince, but found out he had allied himself with the devil and basically gone mad? Heck, who knows if we'll even be killing Kael.

What I DON'T like is how former 'heroes' like Kel'thuzad, Vashj and Illidan are being put on 'farm status'. Its kind of insulting to the role they played in the game's storyline. Either they allow us to kill them, and they become a footnote in the story of the game and players feel as though they are affecting the storyline itself, or we get them to 1%, they flee and come back to haunt us in a later expansion or something (e.g. what they've done with Kel'Thuzad and that phylactory) and we feel that our efforts at trying to affect the gameworld are meaningless.

Either way, it kinda sucks.

Well, it's been stated that Illidan has gone mad after his defeat at the end of TFT, and the lore indicates that the Blood Elves who did not follow him through to Outland have been largely cut off from them for the majority of the time since then. Presumably, they'll just do the same with Kael - that is, they will say that he has been drawn into Illidan's mad delusions and has decided that the only way to secure the position of the Blood Elves is to, say, wipe out all other civilisations on Azeroth. Thus, the Blood Elves who were living in Azeroth, who have not been dragged into this mass delusion would realise that, regrettably, their old leader could not be followed any more, and eventually had to be stopped, regardless of the cost.

There we are, a nice simple outline for a possible reason for them to turn on Kael, which could even be built up nicely in a series of questlines. Just because someone was their leader once does not guarantee their suitability for leadership for all time - especially if they're allied to a delusional half-elf half-demon who wasn't very stable to begin with.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if bosses like Kael and Illidan did an Anachronos and despawned at a low %, dropping a nice chest of loot.

Vashj I can see being killed, she was never much of a character, despite being former Highborn ruler etc. But who knows, I guess we have to wait and see how it's all implemented before we start groaning.

As for Blood Elf on Blood Elf action, I think the whole "Oh no, Kael's working for an evil demon, his magical addiction has driven him to depraved acts (never mind that we're draining a servant of the light for paladin powers), and alas, we must now put an end to him" theory is pretty much spot on.

As far as I am concerned, all WoW lore went down the crapper after the ultimate champions and protectors of humanity allowed dwarves (dwarves, man!) into their ranks. From there is sorta went down hill.

I'm guessing these guys have got something to do with it.

Kael = Crack Fiend.

Illidan = Kael's dealer.

That's a blood elf too far gone in addiction to control his lusts. They spiral into madness and attack their own kind, trying to find greater magical energies to feed on. Kael has nothing to do with what they are.

Anyway, I'm with probiscus. We don't know what will happen, and we won't know what will happen any better at the end of this thread.

His character as written has always been one to make rash decisions, often extremely selfishly (although a lot of that is from the War of the Ancients books, and I'm not sure how much that reflects on the 'true' lore. Stupid time travel).
But the real reason to consider him descending into madness has been that it has been alluded to numerous times in TBC promo material that after his defeat at Icecrown, he's been brooding in his fortress, hiding from his enemies, and slowly going off the deep end. To what extent this will actually be, we shall have to see in the more detailed lore which will come with TBC.

Come on, the guy was locked in solitary for what 10,000 years? THAT might equate to going mad, but brooding in his fortress for 2 years just doesn't cut when compared to what the guy went through already.

10000 years in solitary - secure
2 years on the run from a pissed off demon god? - scary stuff

Doesn't seem like it will matter anyway, Kazzak being the one to open the portal pretty much shows that they don't give a shit what we kill, they will keep writing the story like we don't exist. It's pretty weak.

This is new and its lore.


I love lore in WoW. The BC is going to offer some fun little Tidbids when it comes around. At some point we are fighting Kael'thas and I want to see how that turns out with BE's having to fight him. There is some reason. He is after all their leader and savior. Them being forced to fight them has to be something Huge.

Blood Elf search party to outlands finds Kael, discovers that their savior (their dying civilization was revitalized by his messenger sending word that Things will be better Real Soon Now) is a false messiah. They encourage him to have an "accident", misplace the body, and maintain the hope... in his name.

Check the Dune series of books and the sinister turn a similar situation takes with Alia. "Sorry, the prophet's message is incongruous with my political needs, time for him to never be found..."

EDIT:

That's entirely just a supposition on my part, sorry if it's written as if I have any inside information - I don't.

I mean, they die in WoW, they die in Warcraft IV, they die in Warcraft Adventures, they die in Warcraft: Blademaster... what's the difference?

Like, I see where your coming from, with the nature of MMO games sort of de-emphasizing the importance of the metastory, what with these guys "dying" only to pop right back to life on Tuesday morning, but the metastory is still there. When WoW 2 comes out, Rend will be dead, killed by a band of intrepid adventurers. And until then, he supplies us with high quality itemry!

Yeah, I like this guy's point, I just personally hope Arthas goes down in Warcraft 4 :D
Why farm for months when you can be ready in 20-30 minutes of micro-managemnt?

One of my favorite parts of playing FFXI is that while you were off grinding yourself to death on the same crab/bug model for 2 months, there was an ongoing story that you took part in, and that it progressed fully aware of what you had done before. The pieces are there for a coherent narrative spanning possibly most of the instances in the current game, all they need is Thrall telling you "we are forever in your debt druid, but in his madness, Nefarus gloated of a darker evil to come in southern-most wastes than perhaps even the Silithids we faced in the war..." Of course everyone knows that the guy right beside them talking to Thrall is getting the same song and dance about how they were the saviors of Kalimdor in instance Raid ID: 22033, but I think the chance to construct a flowing story exists, and would probobly make the death of storyline characters more palatable; I for one would hate to load up Warcraft 4 and find out that for the passed 3-4 years I've been playing WoW, nothing happened; I'd rather hear how hero's banded together to defeat the hold over villains from Warcraft 3, and how in the process they discovered something else to swing swords at.

With EQ/EQ2, they've said pretty much that "unless we've killed them off in a story, it doesn't count." I believe WoW has the same mantra. IE: If they really want Onyxia/Nefarian to make a showing whenever we get around to Grim Batol, that's their perogative. Hell, if they ever want to expand on Arugal he's not officially dead either yet.

My guess is Kael'thas is insane now... and all of his blood elves are now Crack Elves. (Can't find the picture of the crack elf >.>)

Unless you look at it from the view of progression.

You can't form the Sceptor and open the gates unless Vael dies, Nefarian dies, the Battle of Moonglade happens, the recovery of the Draconics for Dummies happens, etc.

Stuff like Arugal and other older dungeons would make sense, because you actually see the same senario happen with Highlord Morgraine if/when somebody gets the Ashbringer and goes back to SM.

Just trying to figure out which is part of the story and which is optional.

Those don't count. Unless it's part of official canon that "Soandso defeated Nefarian" it doesn't count. I know it doesn't make sense half the time, or any of the time really...but well... /shrug